In the Wings

Learn more about the history of Bellini's famous opera Norma, iconic singers who took on the role, and Boston's history with this opera.

Thomas Mallon shares his thoughts and experiences with Fellow Travelers as both his novel and an opera.

Now about to turn 70, Poul Ruders has created an immense catalogue of music, diverse, distinctive, and distinguished.

Paul Bentley is the very model of a modern multi-purpose man: an actor, author, singer, historian and opera-lover; he wrote the libretto for THE HANDMAID'S TALE.

Caroline Worra and Maria Zifchak met in 1998 at San Francisco Opera's Merola Program. But they have never been onstage together since until BLO's THE HANDMAID'S TALE.

As a young man Angus studied piano and conducting, setting his sights on a career in the orchestral repertory. But early experiences changed his course--and brought him into the world of opera.

Karole Armitage, stage director of Schoenberg in Hollywood, has spent her entire career re-inventing herself ... “I never sought to have a ‘career,’” she says. “Instead I always follow my curiosity and I’ve always been willing to try something no one else was doing.”

In January, 1816, Rossini was up against a wall, and the person who put him there was himself. At the end of 1815, the composer was in Rome and the director of Rome’s Teatro Argentina asked him on short notice to compose a new opera for February: the opera that would become The Barber of Seville.

“Rosina is an old friend, but she never gets boring,” says mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack. “To sing the same part all the time would get boring if nothing ever changed, but each new production, each new director, each new concept makes everything different.”

As far as Google can tell, Claude Heater is the only living member of the original cast of Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti. Back in 1952, Heater was the baritone in the vocal trio. Today, Heater is 90 and has lively memories of Bernstein and of many other figures in his long and vigorous life.